Too Technical of an Age?

While making my daily trip through my usual websites, a link to ZDnet.com came up. For those that do not know ZDnet, they're a popular business/tech website. Most of their articles are not just about new inventions, but how it will effect the economy and etc. While I didn't get to read the article I clicked on, the main page brought me another interesting story, The Top 10 Tech Disasters of all time. Instead of just rehashing the list, Ill point out a few of my favorite ones.

#1 Bad Soviet software nearly starting WWIII. This is just incredible. A faulty reading in the soviets software registered that the US had just launched 5 missiles their way. The officer that picked it up had a bad feeling and checked the report. He found it was a misreading and prevented the Soviet's from retaliating unnecessarily.

#4 Airbus mishap. A rather recent story form 06, the new airbus being developed in Germany and France suffered a malfunction when the two halves were being attached. The Germans were using a older version on the same software than the French and led to the two halves being misaligned. This little mistake set the company back over a year and cost a ton of money.

#8 The rumors of exploding laptops from Dell had been running rampant in 06. Well some were true and it couldnt have happened at a worst time for one incident. Right in the middle of a Dell exhibition showing their new laptop line. So in front of a crowd of onlookers, mostly tech savvy buyers and writers, Dell confirmed their issue at their expense. (no this was not a publicity stunt, Dell just sucks)

Link to source article here

New Use for PS3s?

Sony's underachieving gaming console still line store's shelves, a reminder of their dismal sales numbers. Well a cyber security researcher from New Zealand, Nick Breese has found a new use for them, cracking passwords. Using ps3's very powerful processor, Breese has been able to brute force hack files in record time. Brute Force hacking relies on imputting every possible code untill the computer finally accepts one. These hacks rely on speed of the computer trying the hack, and using the ps3's processor seems to speed things up exponentially. "The gaming console is perfect for cracking passwords because the chips it uses are optimised to rapidly perform the calculations required to model 3-D environments. The computing techniques used to crack passwords are similar." says Breese. Being a security researcher, Breese's job isn't to crack passwords, but to find the methods people are using and provide protection from them. Breese hopes this presentation will spur new methods of protection to make sure companies have protection form this in the future.

Link to source article here

Maximum the Hormone

Im going to use a band I know very few people reading this blog have heard of for my second band profile, Maximum the Hormone.

Maximum the Hormone is a four member Japanese rock band.Their first album was released in 1998 with little success. Two years later the band split, with Suigi and Key leaving the band. The remaining members, Nawo and Daisuke recruited Ue-Chan at bass and Nawo's brother, Ryo for guiatar and melodic vocals.

Why I love this band? I cannot understand what they are saying in their songs (though from the translations and summaries I have read, the lyrics do not make logical sense in ant language), but their melodies and tones are amazing. What sets this band apart from other bands in my opinion? All their members contribute vocals. Each song has such vocal variation, then melodic variation to match the vocals, each song sounds so different from one another and never gets boring. Hearing the band go from hard metal sounds with Daisuke's screaming, to Ryo's melodic pop sounds to Nawo's soft feminine vocals in the same song really set this band apart from other bands for me. Heres a link to their song "Koi no Suito kuso merikan," its one of my favorites, which is very lucky since there has apparently been a purge of many of their videos from youtube. I do admit, they sound a bit better in studio than live. Their live stuff isnt bad, but I just feel their studio work is superior, but still nothing beats the feeling of live performances.

Incubus

Running out of blogs topics, I have decided to highlight some of my favorite bands in my posts. The band tonight, Incubus.

A Kansas City based band formed when the four of the five members were fifteen years old. The four recorded their first full CD, later titled Fungus Amongus, but it was not picked up by a label. Their manager at the time paid for the pressing of the 1,000 cds out of his pocket, believing in the band's potential. They began gathering a fan base and they gained another band member, Gavin Kobbel, the DJ. Gavin was the last to join and first to leave, two years later Gavin left the band and another DJ, Chris Kilmore was added. This is the band to date and they have no plans to change according to any of the members.

Now for some of the my favorite works of the band. My favorite CD would have to be Morning View. Each cd has marked a noticeable change in the band's style. Morning View was their first cd that had a more mainstream sound while still keeping the signature Incubus oddities. Coming in a VERY close second would be Make Yourself. Make Yourself houses my favorite tracks from the band, but it just does not have the depth of Morning View. Some of the lower tracks on Make yourself ruin the play through for me, while Morning View has solid tracks throughout.
Any time you have the chance to hear Incubus acoustic please go watch. In fact, there is a one hour acoustic session with the band on youtube here that is great, not their best work but good nonetheless. They have a few orchestral acoustic performances that are just phenomenal and a must hear. Naturally they have fantastic live performances including one here of one of my favorite songs, The Warmth.

Maynard James Keenan

Maynard James Keenan is a modern singer/ songwriter. He is the lead singer and writer of three different bands, Tool (his oldest and most dedicated), A Perfect Circle (He wanted to try a new style of music) and Puscifer (A way to get the creative ideas out of his head). All three bands of found acclaim among music lovers of all different styles. Why have I chosen to write about him? Because he is in my eyes one of the most amazing artist not only of our generation, but of all time. He is one of the only musicians I would truly call an artist. His songs are all amazingly written with sub context in every song. He does music for himself and the art, not to cell cds. As a singer he is nothing short of spectacular. His voice has a odd, earthly spirit and style to it. All three of his amazing bands sound different and unique. If forced to pick my favorite, it would have to be APC, with Tool and Puscifer both close behind. Puscifer has just recently released their first full cd and it is great as expected. Please do yourself a favor and watch this video from youtube of the song "The Noose" from APC . Good quality tool songs are few and far between on yotube so please buy the cd or even download just to have something to enrich your tastes

New Hires

At my place of work, Shoprite, we have recently started a hiring spree. More than 20 new cashiers have been hired in the past month alone, nearly doubling the staff. The reason was a mix of us being shorthanded and the holidays coming up, so increasing the work staff was necessary. This has led to some odd changes. My hours have been shifted and cut slightly, not enough that I mind, but the beautiful thing is, I do not have to do any real work. Since there are more cashiers than avaliable registers on weekend and on weekdays not busy enough to have them all open, I am able to do odd jobs around the store. Such as putting things back on shelves, fixing shelves, etc. All easy jobs that require no effort and lead to me wandering the store aimless much of the time. I am loving all the new help, especially since I am able to get all the new kids to do the shitty jobs. However, with all good things come some problems. One of our trainees, Rob was hit by a car while crossing Hylan after work. I believe he is still in the hospital but stable. Another trainee, Jessica I believe, has gone missing. The police have been by multiple times to ask questions and we are all hopeful they will find her. So our hopes and prayers go out to both of them, get home safely.

The Departure of OiNk

The torrent download giant site of them all, Oink, was recently closed by interpol. Oink for those who do not know was a semi-invite only torrent download site that indexed thousands of cds. It had a user base of about 100,000 dedicated users. The only way to gain access to this site was by an invite from an existing members or signing up during an open period (which were rather rare). User were required to keep a steady upload/download ratio, so cds never went dead and always plenty of people to download from. Interpol targeted this site not because of the user base (as plenty of public sites have much larger bases) , but because of the dedicated users that the government feared. The death of this giant has already opened the way for numerous sites to step up and try to take its spot. Some of the competing sites are waffles.fm and whatcd. Both are invite only sites but are having trouble getting their files up. It is doubtful that either will be able to get to where Oink was at its height. The site was truly magical. Any cd you wanted, from whenever, even the rarest you could think of was alive and well. However it is no more and we will all remember 10/23, the day the internet cried.

Radiohead- In Rainbows

About a week ago, Radiohead released their latest album. However good luck trying to find it in stores. The band decided to try something new, without having a record company to back them, the band released their album solely online. Oddly, thats the not the strange part, the strange part is the band let any user name their own price for download. That's right, you could download the album for free with breaking any laws, its completely up to you how much their music is worth to you. This odd experiment was meant to get people to think about how mcuh music is worth and downloading online. Recent reports say the band has made over a million dollars on the cd, not too bad considering any body could get it for free. The band is in talks with studios to get a physical release out, but that will be pay to own. So after reading this, how much is music worth to you?